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How Coaching Youth Sports Helped My Thinking about Christian Character

The most important activity that helped refine my view of character education was not taking classes on epistemology and ethics from Dallas Willard. Nor was it taking all my other Ph.D. classes that addressed virtue or moral development. It was coaching youth league sports. Granted, readings in philosophy, ethics, and theology led me to recognize…
June 25, 2025
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AI and the Grammar of Descent

Recently, there’s been even more press than usual about AI proliferation and its associated risks. The hype has been driven, in part, by the now infamous Ross Douthat interview with Daniel Kokotajlo, executive director of the A.I. Futures Project, in which Kokotajlo suggests that AI could take over civilization—and “then kill all the humans”—by 2027.…
June 24, 2025
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God Made All Nations from One Blood: The Origins of a Biblical Argument against Slavery

In 1526, William Tyndale’s ground-breaking translation of the English New Testament appeared. In this translation, Tyndale used a unique phrase that was not in John Wycliffe’s original English translation. Instead of translating a key passage from Paul’s sermon to the Athenians in Wycliffe’s original way, “ made of one all the kind of men” (Acts…
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Mirrors Transformed by Light:Meditations on the God Who Is Light

I’d like to propose a thought experiment -- one that may transform your understanding of something you see every day. Thought experiments can change the world, or at least your understanding of it. Einstein’s great scientific breakthroughs started with a thought experiment, something like this one. For our experiment, imagine how a mirror works. If…

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Guest Post – Hospitality and Nursing

In broad terms, hospitality can be defined as “the friendly reception and treatment of guests or strangers” or “the quality or disposition of receiving and treating guests and strangers in a warm, friendly, generous way.”Dictionary.com, “hospitality,” 2021, https://www.dictionary.com/browse/hospitality The words hospitality and hospital are both derived from the Latin hospes, signifying a guest, stranger, or foreigner—describing…
December 8, 2021
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Rolling in the Deep: Adele and the Argument from Desire

“The main emotion of the adult American who has all the advantages of wealth, education, and culture is disappointment.” ]http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/reviews/view/18712/revolutionary-road John Cheever, novelist Like many fans of Adele, I tuned into her televised outdoor concert at the scenic Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles (Nov. 14, 2021).  With the iconic HOLLYWOOD sign the in the background,…
December 7, 2021
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Learning to Pray

The way we pray says quite a lot about us. Our prayers and the way we form them project a story about what ought to be. When we draw upon the public prayers of others and make our own prayers part of public discourse, prayer becomes one form of teaching and learning. I have been…
December 6, 2021
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Advent Meditation II: The Lady Listens

Simone Martini, The Annunciation with Sts. Margaret and Ansanus, early 14th c., Uffizi Gallery, https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/annunciation-with-st-margaret-and-st-ansanus Also, Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Annunciation, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1898, https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/104384 From the beginning of time, there were whispers. There was rumor even at the Fall, at the cracking of the world, when the face of God was hidden and the great rifting began. But…
December 3, 2021
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It’s a Matter of Trust

What makes for good leadership? There isn’t a straightforward answer. The study and practice of leadership is a bit like Baskin-Robbins with thirty-one or more different flavors. There is valid data to show that effective leaders lead from the front with charismatic personalities. Other, equally valid, studies show that effective leaders function more in the…
December 1, 2021
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Guest Post – Carbon’s Invitation to Wonder

“The heavens declare the glory of God.” With this proclamation David opens Psalm 19, which“celebrates the glory of God as manifested in his works” and “the knowledge of God which shines forth more clearly in his word,” as John Calvin says in his commentary. There is no doubt that this proclamation “includes by synecdoche the…
November 30, 2021
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The gifts of advising day

Receiving another person’s story is always a privilege. Whether in therapy, confession, interview, or conversation, when one person willingly shares a part of their narrative, they are offer vulnerability and intimacy along with their history. It is a privilege to be offered such a human connection. Recently my institution held its once a semester Advising…
November 29, 2021
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Advent Meditation I: St. Hildegard and the Cyclical Song of Angels

(Choirs of Angels, Scivias I.6, https://arthistoryproject.com/artists/hildegard-von-bingen/scivias-i.6-the-choirs-of-angels/) Among medieval Catholic saints (think Catherine of Siena, Anthony of Padua or Joan of Arc), Hildegard of Bingen is one of the most palatable to modern tastes. She was not prone to shocking self-mortifications; she was not embroiled in muddy political disputes; and she has not been subjected to…
November 26, 2021
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Guest Post – The Pilgrims’ “First Thanksgiving” Was Not the One We Remember

Today millions of Americans will celebrate Thanksgiving, and some, at least, will find a historical precedent for what they are doing in the Pilgrims’ celebration on the coast of Massachusetts in 1621. Although frequently embellished and sometimes caricatured, the story of the Pilgrims’ “First Thanksgiving” is rich with insight and inspiration. The Pilgrims were human,…
November 24, 2021